Our big trip for the summer was a 5-night camping trip to Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes and Traverse City! We left on a Monday morning, bright and early, with a loaded truck to go to Indigo Bluffs RV Park (a private campground made mostly for campers, but they had several rustic tent sites at the back of the park). We stopped for lunch between Cadillac and the campground, knowing there wouldn't be many options the closer we got. It was a cute place called Buckhorn Saloon that had delicious burgers and pizza. We got to the campground around 2:30pm and set-up and enjoyed an evening at the campground checking out the pool, the playground, riding bikes, visiting the horses from a distance, and finding a field to play wiffle ball.
Tuesday morning we got up, after a great night of sleep, and made eggs and bacon for breakfast. We packed lunches and got ready to venture out to some spots along M-22 for the day. Our first stop was the Empire Bluff Trail that was absolutely gorgeous! The hike was easy and the views were well worth it. Next up was the hike to Pyramid Point. That uphill hike was a little more challenging, but again, the view was incredible! The kids wanted to run down the dune, but we made them stay put as we weren't up for a 3 hour climb back up. We ate our lunch in the car and drove on to Leland to do some shopping and swim at Van's Beach. The kids found petoskey stones, they enjoyed swimming, and we got Moomers ice cream and a book about Michigan birds from a small book shop.
We ended our long day with a stop in Suttons Bay at Hop Lop for dinner and some beers. We got back to the campground and enjoyed another bike ride and a fire.
Wednesday morning we started our day with pancakes! We had a lazy morning at the campground playing Jenga and relaxing. It was going to be a cloudy day with a chance of rain so we decided to go into Traverse City after lunch to go to some breweries and do some shopping. We made quesadillas and ramen for lunch on the camping stove before hitting the road. We started at Right Brain Brewery and got flights since they had so many beers. The kids absolutely loved all the pinball machines and that kept them occupied. We moved on to Rare Bird and split some appetizers while having a beer. Our third stop was North Peak, which was my least favorite. We did some shopping on the main drag and bought some popcorn from the popcorn store. Evan picked caramel apple and we also bought some Chicago Mix. Our final stop was at The Workshop where they also had a pizza shop inside their brewery. We split a delicious pizza that was very cheesy for dinner and decided to head back to the campsite. We stopped for wood on the way back and came back to find that it had barely rained at our campsite. Yay!
Thursday was an easy breakfast of cereal and oatmeal. We had our tubing trip planned for 1pm so we had another lazy morning at the campground and grilled hot dogs over the fire for lunch before leaving to head over to the Platte River. This was all of our first time at the Platte River and it's truly beautiful. We booked with Riverside Canoe and it was quite the adventure. We had to check-in, wait for a van, then get in our truck and follow the van, then get all the passengers out but the driver to wait in a spot while Scott moved the truck to park way further down the road and come back to join us with the tubes, and then we had to walk 10 minutes in the hot sun with all things and tubes on gravel to the river. Whew! Sean and I tied our tubes together and Evan was with Scott and the extra tube for our cooler and other things. It was a little over two hours to get down the river out to Lake Michigan. The first hour was great. The second hour was a little rough since Sean was getting tired of moving into the shore and having to correct our tubes. I got off once to move us to the middle, but then it was too deep for me to get back on the tube so I kept walking in water up to my chin for quite a while and finally tried to jump on, but flipped my tube and knocked off my sunglasses and lost them in the water. By then Sean was over it all and it was quite miserable, but thankfully we could see the sand dunes and see Lake Michigan around the corner. We turned in our tubes and went to our truck to get our beach stuff and stayed at the beach until it looked like a random storm was brewing.
We got back to the campground just in time for the storm and it was wicked! Only 30 minutes, but it absolutely poured, sideways, with thunder and lightning. We stayed in the truck and by some miracle, we had no leaks in the tent. And the rain dried quickly on the ground after it ended. Scott started up his charcoal grill and made burgers that were...not very good. No one was super happy with dinner so we enjoyed lots of snacks and lots of s'mores.
Friday was our last full day and we started with more eggs and bacon! We packed up lunches and decided to head back to the where the Platte River meets Lake Michigan. The river was warm and perfect and Lake Michigan had great views. It was such a great day at the beach! We stayed all the way up until 4:30pm and went into Empire for dinner at Joe's Tavern, which was...pretty mediocre, but expensive for a dinner. We had our last fire, last bike ride, and last shuffleboard game of the trip.
Saturday morning we made one more batch of pancakes and started the packing up process. We were out by 11am, but it was not easy! We made the long voyage home stopping for fast food lunch and gas. We had an absolutely wonderful week and loved Indigo Bluffs Campground! I hope we can camp there again!
